Expert Profile

Caryn McTighe Musil is the Senior Vice President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities and oversees the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives. Under her leadership, the office has been working to mobilize powerful and overlapping educational reform movements involving civic, diversity, global learning, women’s issues, and personal and social responsibility.

Dr. Musil is currently directing a multi-project national initiative, “Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility,” that focuses on engaging students with core questions about their ethical responsibilities to self and others, and about their responsibilities as citizens in a diverse democracy. It is funded by the Templeton Foundation.

Dr. Musil, with her colleague Kevin Hovland, also directs a FIPSE-funded project, “Shared Futures: General Education for Shared Learning,” which seeks to infuse global learning across general education. Its premise is that in our interdependent but unequal world, higher education can help prepare students not only to thrive in such a world but to remedy its inequities.

In addition, she serves as Director of the Program on the Status and Education of Women, which produces a tri-quarterly online newsletter On Campus with Women. The program also offers workshops on women’s leadership for inclusive excellence through the Campus Women Lead project, and provides national leadership on issues concerning women in higher education. A new status report on women in higher education, A Measure of Equity, will be released in late 2008.

Dr. Musil’s interest in civic engagement led to the creation of the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement, which promotes civic engagement as a priority for students so they become aware of other communities outside their own and make the changes necessary to thrive in an interdependent, global society. She has also been working with the Council of Europe to further the global aspect of civic engagement so that institutions can foster student learning about democratic cultures and human rights in our world.

Publications and Expertise

In addition to her office’s projects, she has written and edited a number of publications, including Assessing Global Learning: Matching Good Intentions with Good Practice (2006), Assessing Campus Diversity Initiatives: A Guide for Campus Practitioners (2002), “Educating for Citizenship” (2003), To Form a More Perfect Union: Campus Diversity Initiatives, ed (1999), Assessing Campus Diversity Initiatives: A Guide for Campus Practitioners, ed (2003) and Gender, Science and the Undergraduate Curriculum, ed (2001). She is a frequent plenary speaker and workshop leader on civic, diversity, global, and women’s issues within higher education.

Caryn McTighe Musil received her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. Before moving into national level administrative work in higher education, she was a faculty member for eighteen years.

Dr. Musil has been an educational consultant and outside evaluator at numerous colleges and universities, with a special interest in faculty and curriculum development and has served as a reviewer and outside evaluator for FIPSE, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford Foundation. A frequent speaker and presenter various national conferences, Dr. Musil has been writing, teaching, and speaking on women, gender, and diversity throughout her career.